


Επανένωση (epanenosi)

by TheAddict4Dramatics



Category: The Durrells (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Naked Cuddling, Post-World War II, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-17 00:15:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14821598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAddict4Dramatics/pseuds/TheAddict4Dramatics
Summary: Impossibly, oh how impossibly, the face of her husband was gazing down at her, fixing her in that serious, earnest frown of his. How could it be? She let out a dry sob – somewhere between a gasp and a cry and Spiros’ hand flew to her face at once, brushing away the stray hair that had escaped during the night and running his fingers over cheek in a move that was so utterly comforting it made her want to really sob this time. She blinked. And again for good measure. He was still there. Six years of dreaming and he was finally there.The war is finally over and some reunions are in order...





	Επανένωση (epanenosi)

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a Greek speaker (at all!) but according to google translate Επανένωση (epanenosi) translates as reunion or more specifically reunification. 
> 
> Happy reading.

_England **,** 1945_

 

Louisa came to slowly as the beside alarm brought her out of her slumber; it’s insistent ringing getting louder and louder the more aware she became. She felt groggy and sluggish from the night before. Had she drowned her sorrows under a tide of gin the previous evening? Probably. Though she had no specific memory of doing so. Everything seemed to be merging into one hazy, half-remembered memory of late. This was her life from now on. The war was over and so, it seemed, was any hope of ever seeing her husband again. Spiros was dead. 

 

Just as the alarm was becoming unbearable and she had begun to reach out to silence it, an arm stretched over her and clicked it off. Louisa froze at once. She was not alone in her bed. Immediately she began to panic. Exactly how drunk had she been last night that she had ended up with a stranger in her bed? She squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to block out what was happening. She suddenly became aware that she was naked under the sheet, another tell-tale sign of previous events. And even more tellingly she ached slightly between her thighs in the most satisfying way. She felt a tear slip from under her closed eyelid. 

 

Six years. Six years since she had last seen Spiros, since he had all but forced her and her family onto the ferry back to England as soon as war had been announced. For their own safety of course and she understood why he couldn’t come with them. They’d only been married two months at the time. Six years of waiting in England for any scrap of news, any slither of hope they he had not perished when the Greek army fell to Nazi Germany and Italy in 1940. She knew he had been there, in the army on the mainland when they were finally conquered and occupied and she had spent six years praying he hadn’t been one of the 40,000 Greek soldiers that had been slaughtered in the proceedings. 

 

Six years – it was longer than the entire time her family had spent on Corfu. Longer with him missing from her life than he had ever been in it. And yet the ring on her left hand felt as if it were burning her skin. She had betrayed him and she was suffocating with consequence of it all.  

 

“Hey, are you okay?” The stranger asked her, his voice overcome with concern. He reached out and wiped away the tear with his finger. To Louisa’s surprise she didn’t flinch at his touch. Her eyes flew open instantly. That was no stranger. 

 

Impossibly, oh how impossibly, the face of her husband was gazing down at her, fixing her in that serious, earnest frown of his. How could it be? She let out a dry sob – somewhere between a gasp and a cry and Spiros’ hand flew to her face at once, brushing away the stray hair that had escaped during the night and running his fingers over cheek in a move that was so  _utterly_  comforting it made her want to really sob this time. She blinked. And again for good measure. He was still there. Six years of dreaming and he was finally there. 

 

“I thought I’d dreamt it.” She whispered to him, as if to say it any louder may make him disappear. His eyes softened in complete understanding. He’d spent six years dreaming of this too – and waking up alone to the agonising separation that had been their reality for so long. 

 

“I’m here.” He reassured her whilst he continued to trace invisible patterns on the skin of her face and neck. 

 

And at once it all came back to her. He had turned up on her dreary English doorstep the day before – _alive_ but not quite well. He had aged more than the six years since she’d last seen him but of course he had. He’d been to hell and back; he was half starved and his hands shook so much he had struggled to remove his own clothing, let alone hers. His body was littered with marks that hadn’t been there before – countless little scars and burns – all lingering evidence of the occupation. He had survived, but he wasn’t quite the man she had married. Then again, who was the same person they had been before the war. 

 

Spiros had spent the last year, since Greece had been liberated in 1944, searching for his children. He’d found them, both of them still alive and settled them back on Corfu before heading straight over to England to find her. Luckily there weren’t a huge amount of Mrs. Halikiopoulos’ in the Home Counties so she’d been fairly easy to track down. And she’d waited for him. His biggest fear was that she would have given up on him, and with good reason, and moved on with her life. He couldn’t have blamed her if she had but it would have destroyed him. The hope of their reunion had been one of the only things keeping him going. 

 

He knew as soon as she’d opened the door to him that his fears had been misplaced. Louisa had all but fallen into him, sobbing in relief until she had completely exhausted herself. The repeated mantra: ‘I thought you were gone, I thought you were gone’ breaking through the tears. When he’d carried her to bed, he’d noticed the framed picture of the two of them on their wedding day by her bedside. And once he’d set her down she had refused to let go of him until he promised not to leave the room. She’d been longing for him as much as he had her – that had been as clear as anything. 

 

Spiros made to move off of her. He was aware that his entire body weight, though much less considerable than it had been, had been pressing into her for several long moments. 

 

“No.” She demanded quietly, her fingers clasping around his bicep with strong insistence to keep him exactly where he was. “Don’t.” She appeared panic stricken whenever he was about to be anywhere but directly in front of her. Spiros looked down as his heart sank. The last six years had turned them both neurotic and now everything between them was a little fraught, a little frayed around the edges. He longed for those months before the war had been declared – when they were first together and everything was carefree and easy, just so. 

 

“I’m not going anywhere, I just don’t want to squash you.” He explained quietly, opening his eyes to fix her in his gaze once more. He hoped she would see the sincerity and relax. 

 

“You’re not squashing me. I like it. It’s a physical reminder that you’re actually here, that you’re not going to disappear into thin air at any second.” She spoke her quiet confession to his right shoulder, refusing to look him in the eye. He sighed. She was uncomfortable with how needy she must appear to him. She was so vulnerable when he was the one that had been through so much. Yet he was the only one that seemed to understand her skittishness – a debilitating nervousness that this heaven would crumple leaving her alone again. 

 

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” He repeated. He was giving her such patience and she wasn’t sure she deserved it. It should be her comforting him, not the other way round way. 

 

She had comforted him a little, the night before when his fingers had been trembling so much he couldn’t even undo the buttons of his own shirt. She’d stilled their jerking movements with her own hands and moved them gently aside before setting to the task herself. She undid each button slowly and deliberately, taking the time to enjoy everything about it – the feel of the material under her finger tips, the smell of her husband, somehow unchanged by all that had happened, as it lingered in  _their_  room, and the sound of his nervous swallows. Once the shirt had been removed she’d brushed over some of the new marks on his body. She’d seen his eyes darken in unmistakable lust at the sensation of her nails against his skin. That had been enough for her. She had pulled him to her and the rest of the night had been lost. Their reunification so momentous it obliterated the rest of existence. 

 

And yet this morning when she had awoken to the assumed aloneness she was so accustom to only to be proven very wrong, it was suddenly all too much for her. The tears started falling freely down her face. His fingers were there once again, brushing them away much slower than they were falling.

 

“I’m sorry!” She choked and he shook his head. A silent rebuff of that statement. “I know you’re not I just...” Louisa stopped abruptly as the words failed her. How could she explain all that she was feeling in that moment, all that she had felt in the last six years? Spiros remained patiently silent. “I love you so much!” She finally declared. 

 

He smiled at her; a big, genuine, generous smile and for that brief moment he was the old Spiros again, they were the old them again. He reached down and turned her over until she was flat on her back, though he was still pressed into her from top to toe. He did have a point, she inwardly conceded, it was more comfortable than before. He dried more of her tears before leaning down to kiss her softly. She melted into his touch, opening her mouth and arching her body into his. He smiled against her mouth. He wanted to make a joke about going away more often if this was the welcome home he got but he resisted. He figured it was too soon, for both of them. 

 

“I love you too.” He told her, his lips mere millimetres from hers. There was so much more he wanted to say and even more they needed to discuss but for now that seemed like enough. Her tears had slowed and her hands were beginning to wander not entirely aimlessly down his back. He pressed an open mouth kiss to the base of her throat. “If it’s a physical reminder of my presence that you need...” He made his voice the most suggestive he could manage and Louisa giggled in response. Christ in heaven did he love that sound. “I can do that.” He affirmed as his lips moved lower, leaving red hot caresses in their wake. 

 

The war for Europe was over. It was finally,  _finally_ over. 


End file.
